When We're On The Same Road
by upticks
Summary: What if, after Angela and Hodgins' not-wedding, events of a 'coital' persuasion happened, instead of what we know to be the gap between the S2 finale and the first episode of S3? AU fic, B&B.
1. You And Me, Flesh And Flesh

**A/N: The title of this fic is inspired by the song 'Maybe - Kelly Clarkson', and the title of the chapter and the lyrics IN the chapter is inspired by 'Your Call - Secondhand Serenade', so go have a listen! They're both brilliant songs.**

**Also, this fic is an exploration of all the 'what if's' and possibilities that the gap between the end of S2 and the start of S3 left. It's very much AU, and branches off from what is 'canon' at the end of the S2 finale. So please, bear with me. (:  
**

'_Cause I was born to tell you I love you  
And I am torn to do what I have to, to make you mine  
Stay with me tonight._

"I don't see why you had to give me a ride home, Booth." She declared, irritated as she twisted her apartment key in the lock, hand pressed against the panelling for some purchase. Her partner leant against the same door frame, one half of his shirt un-tucked, his suit hanging gently on his frame, a content smile sitting on his lips.

"If anything, you are more inebriated than I am." The door gives way, and she withdraws the key with a metallic clank, pressing inwards as the door opens to reveal her living room. Her heels click on the floor as she travels over to the kitchen bench, dropping the keys in the middle of the granite tabletop and promptly sinking down into an armchair.

"I saw your tab, Bones, and tabs don't lie." He follows suit, collapsing on the chair next to hers, shaking his index finger in a particularly cheeky motion, a glint in his eye. The comfort of a nice, plump chair after a busy not-wedding reception is a nice touch, and Booth lets out a sigh, closing his eyes for a brief second.

Brennan's eyes thin out, suspicious of the words coming out of his mouth.

"It was a wedding, Booth. There's an open bar." She comments dryly.

"Oh." He grins sheepishly, adjusting his belt, and she laughs, those usually taut and disapproving lips spreading into an open position. He likes it when she smiles, even better when she laughs. It opens up a side of the Bones he rarely sees; the Temperance, the soft, feminine counterpart of Dr. Brennan.

"So, do you want anything? A beer?" Temperance starts playing the host, trying to lever herself out of the chair using the armrests.

"A beer, thanks. And it wasn't really a wedding, considering that Ange and Hodgins left before the vows were said. What was that about, anyway?" Booth questions as he watches Temperance's lithe figure in the tight deep purple dress he had commented on earlier in the day tread over to the kitchenette. Maybe this new feeling has something to do with the moment between them when they were left at the altar, with only empty space separating them and the priest.

Rubbing his finger along the coarse material of the chair, he pushes the thought to the back of his mind. He's had a long day, and he wants to relax. It doesn't seem in context, nor relevant. And even if it was, it would bring up some conversations and unanswered questions that were more comfortable being left unanswered.

"I'm not sure. She should explain on Monday." She opens the fridge, grabbing two green bottles, and feeling daring (and somewhat unlike her) throws one to him, who promptly catches it and cracks the beer open.

"She might be on her honeymoon on Monday, Bones." He reminds, taking a swig of the refreshing liquid that slides down his throat like an old friend. The bottle is cold and slippery, and his fingers are moist from the condensation that lies in waiting on the glass, waiting to be picked up by greedy fingers.

"She never got married. Why would she?"

"No point in wasting a honeymoon."

"Hodgins is rich. I'm sure it means nothing to him."

"That's not what I mean. Time spent on a holiday is time well spent."

"I've never really found that." She muses, fingers dancing along the bottle, creating staccato rhythms that ebb and flow in intensity as her lungs contract and she takes a breath in, lungs expanding as she exhales. It seems like eerie music, jarring beats that infiltrate their thought patterns. "My compulsory leaves always turned into digs of one kind or another. Holidays seem aimless. The prospect of sitting around all day, doing nothing does not appeal to me."

"That's ridiculous. The whole _point_ of a holiday is to sit around and relax. Vegetate."

"That implies to be sluggish, and a slug is not a good thing to be. And I never said it wasn't the point; I just said that I disliked it." Brennan contradicts. Booth thinks he likes Temperance more than Dr. Brennan; things never turn into bickering over technicalities. But somehow, he likes this also. A comforting mould they can fall into, day after day.

"And I'm saying that it's foolish to dislike it. It's what people do after a long day, they relax. It's what we're doing right now!" Booth points out, suddenly becoming very expressive at the discovery of another point that he can argue.

"I'd have to agree." She dips her head down, as if admitting defeat. "And I'd also have to admit that I like this..."

"Yeah, Bones. Me too." The corner of his mouth tweaks upwards in a supporting smile, and his eyes look to her face, hoping for eye contact. It doesn't come, but he waits, sipping the beer as she looks at the floor.

He feels like something's changed between them, or at least something's changed within him. A large, resolute part of his mind has shifted altogether, leaving pathways open and ideas that had been previously unchallenged. _He thinks he's falling for his partner._

The air suddenly becomes stagnant, breathing drawn and heavy, heard easily in the tense air. Both of them aren't moving, his eyes focussed on her and hers on the floor. He knows that she's thinking about her father, as much as the topic had been avoided.

"You alright, Bones? I'm sorry that it was your old man I had to put away." He puts his hand on hers, leaning over in his chair to make the gesture possible. Her eyes dart upwards, a meek, frightened expression plastered on her face, and he realizes that wasn't what she was going over in her mind, and that he might have over-stepped the boundary with that simple touch.

"You should go. It's getting late, and you have church tomorrow." The brisk, expected buffer rises, the extra blow about church an un-expected blow that hits him hard. Reeling, he sits in stunned silence as his partner collects the two beer bottles that had been placed on the coffee table minutes earlier, taking them to the kitchen to be disposed of at another time.

She almost expects him to be gone by the time that she returns from the kitchen, but he's still there. Not pressing the subject any further, she retreats to her bedroom, uttering a soft 'see you on Monday' as she closes the door shut.

As soon as the wooden barrier snaps closed, she leans back against it, wrapping her arms around her torso. She suddenly feels cold, like the harsh wind of reality has just blown past her. Her father had been arrested, and that moment with Booth at the altar _had_ existed.

She feels very lost.

He feels very confused. No, that's the wrong word. Still sitting in her settee, he's anything but confused. His mind is made up, thoughts, deeds and actions set in stone, unchangeable. He feels courageous, as he pulls the handle, swinging open the door.

She sits alone, a small dent in the double bed, legs crossed and hunched over as if to retain warmth. A little, small entity in the big picture. A relatively unaccompanied entity, with her father now in jail, her mother dead, and her brother with a family of his own.

The figure says nothing as Booth carefully treads on the floor, sitting down on the bed beside her. No accusations, no angry words, no questions as to why he's still here.

"Temperance. I needed to put your father away. He killed the Deputy Director of the FBI." He runs his fingers through her hair, breathing the scent in, reassuring himself that this is still the woman he knows. The silent lady with her head facing down is not who he knows.

"I have nobody left. My father... he's a murderer." Her voice catches on the last word, and she noiselessly wipes a tear from her eye, then promptly assessing the finger and the round drop of salty water. "My mother died long ago, and Russ... he has his own family." In all senses of the word, she felt alone.

"Look..." He curls his index finger and nurses her chin, applying force (but not too much) to tilt her head to face his, like he's done before when she was involved in a voodoo crime back in New Orleans and when her father had killed Deputy Director Kirby. The familiar action sends these memories rushing back, but all thoughts are pressed from his mind when their eyes meet.

Her brilliant blue eyes are surrounded by little red veins, deep wells forming at where her bottom lid starts.

"You have me."

"Booth..." She hesitates, trying to pull out of the embrace, but he refuses. His fingers creep upwards, gently tracing the delicate contours of her chin, her skin soft against his rough fingertips. She exhales deeply, tears gently rolling down her cheek, but she's letting it happen.

He catches the tears, stopping them in their path as his finger moves up to her cheek, looping in circles then arching up to her brow-bone, and curving around to run down her nose. The air is silent, movements are slow. He stops tracing her face, and moves onto her arm.

"Booth..."

He passes her elbow, swirling as he travels through her lower arm, and coming to rest on her palm, which is laid out on her knee. Light as a feather, he traces each elegant finger, and upon finishing, rests his hand on hers, then looks back at her eyes, as if expecting something.

She takes a deep breath in, blinking several times as if to stop the tears slowly dripping onto the bed, and stretches her fingers inwards, filling the gap between his. They do the same with the other hands, then everything becomes a blur.

That double bed was used by two that night.

**A/N: REVIEW! :D You know you want to!**


	2. Everything Means More Now

_The truth remains  
In midnight conversations  
I asked for this moment  
But you turned away_

He lifts a hand from the tangled mess of bodies – namely his and hers – to rub his eyelid, gently massaging the soft tissue then slowly daring to open his eyes, blinking profusely. A slight chill creeps over him as he assesses Brennan's bedroom – dresser, door to the ensuite, mirror, bedside table - exactly the same as he had noted it last night.

_Last night_.

Shivering, he tries to wrench some of the bedsheet away from her, haphazhardly sprawled along her side of the bed, arms skewed out at odd angles and breathing lightly, as if the slightest movement or noise could wake her from her uneasy slumber.

Wrapping the sheet around his lower half, he carefully treads over to the ensuite, then backing away from her, feet slapping quietly against the cold tiles, he closes the door. He crosses his arms, rubbing each hand against the other as if to create enough friction to warm him up. God, what was the time? He didn't suppose his partner had alarm clocks in her bathroom.

He didn't suppose she expected him to be half naked, in her bathroom at whatever time it was.

Turning on the taps with one fluid motion, he splashes the warm water over his face in a vain attempt to wake himself up, but just ends up being colder in the first place. Ruffling his hair by the use of his hand, he sighs.

He feels content, somehow. Happy, that he's in this position. But the unrest he's feeling can only spur from what she's going to feel after she wakes up. Temperance Brennan does not believe in love, and will probably put down their night of escapades to a burning desire for sex, which she has told him time and time again is an anthropological need.

What she doesn't understand, is that his main anthropological need, has always been her. And it's only now that he, himself is realizing this. Ever since that time at the shooting range, sparks had flew. He had chose to ignore them, and he could ignore them no more.

But she could.

He continues to hesitate, back pressed up against the wall, and he thinks he's catching a chill. He is unsure of what to do; this is unsteady ground. But if it's unsteady ground, staying in the same place will surely cause it to fall through.

His hand twists, opening the door once again, and stepping out into the bedroom. She looks the same as when he left, except her expression looks like she's grimacing. He grimaces too. Sourcing out his clothes, crudely dropped on the floor from the night before, he pulls on his pants, one leg at a time, and dismisses the belt. He needs some coffee.

Plus, he feels slightly uneasy lingering in her bedroom, as she lies sleeping and naked.

He feels numb as he slowly turns on the tap, filling up his glass with cold water that probably tastes like the tap it's come out of. Avoiding a confrontation for as long as he can, and pretending that he's a welcome resident here for as long as possible, he realized as soon as he walked in her kitchen, that boiling the jug would wake her up.

He's no stranger to this kind of numb; he's no stranger to _mornings after_. The numbness of what he'd done the night before slowly wears away, bit by bit, until he's left with the same, worn down man who tries to forge a relationship, but eventually fails.

This is different. He wants to stay here, he wants it to be like this. He's not ashamed of what he's done, but he knows that she will be. His palms are sweaty as he grips the glass, raising it up to his mouth and gulping down the water. It helps soothe his dry throat.

Maybe they could meet in the middle; she can't deny that there was something there. At the least, she can't deny that he consoled her, that after these two years, that she needs him. Maybe that would open her eyes.

But when you open your eyes, you often don't like what you see.

"What are you doing, Booth?" His heart almost falls out of his chest at the words, and he jumps a little bit with the fright. He sighs deeply, but doesn't turn around just yet.

"God, Bones. You gave me a fright." He reprimands, turning to face her. No first name basis, then.

"Oh... sorry." She stands in the living room, between the coffee table and two arm chairs, a dressing robe wrapped around her torso, hand pinning one side of it to her body. Dormant, she seems unsure of where to stand, what to say or what to do. She puts a hand to her head, rubbing her forehead with her index finger and thumb, as if to somehow make more sense of the situation.

"Do you uh... want a coffee, Bones?" He questions, shifting nervously in his spot. There's so much going unsaid, neither of them know where to start. So, it seems they're starting way back at the beginning. One step forward, two steps back.

"Thankyou." She mumbles, feet planted firmly on the floor, eyes flitting around the room to everywhere and everything except him, as he flits around the kitchen, not knowing his position either.

Fumbling with everything possible; the beans, spoon, jugs, milk, everything, he finally 'whips up' two coffees. He kind of feels like this is the way things should be; him getting her a coffee in the early hours of a morning when they can't get back to sleep. But of course, it's not like that.

It's more like this; awkward. There's no other way to describe it. He wants to say something, she wants to say nothing. He can't find an opportunity, she's finding thousands. Minutes pass, though it feels like hours to him.

"So, are you going to go visit your dad today?" He's down to the last dregs, swirling the cup around absent mindedly to fill the time.

"Conversations through plastic walls do not appeal to me, Booth." They almost slip back into the mould of simple bickering, but it's what's not being said that means more than what is. "And why are you so interested? You have no right to intrude on my family matters."

"I arrested him, Bones." He glares, placing the mug down with a little more force than Brennan would like. "I feel responsible."

"You don't have to – I'm fine." She forces.

"You're not fine, Bones. Your old man is in prison, and he could get a life sentence." He stresses the words _prison _and _sentence_, and she flinches at the enunciation.

"He deserves it."

"That isn't the point – he's your father."

"And a murderer, too."

"And I was the arresting officer. Goddamn it, Bones! It's not okay to bottle things up like this."

"You're making assumptions, Booth. Just because... we shared a night of passion, does not give you the right to speak for me, nor assume that I'm bottling things up." She doesn't hesitate, doesn't seem ashamed of what she's said. She's just stating the facts; a night of passion.

"So that's all it was to you? A night of passion?"

"I'm not going into this, Booth. We're partners." There's a silence from both parties, and eyes have stopped diverting. He sees nothing but denial in hers, and she sees something that scares her in his.

"Yeah. Partners." The candle that's the omnipresent glint in his eyes is snuffed, and he feels like he's been hit in the stomach with a slow swinging sledgehammer. Something that he saw coming, but it hurts more than expected. "I've got to go."

Retrieving his coat from the bench, he doesn't bother to go back to her bedroom and retrieve his shirt. He doesn't want to see the ruffled sheets. He doesn't bother putting it on or buttoning it up, either. The sun isn't out, no light shines in from her curtains. There'll be nobody to see him shirtless.

He slams the door behind him.


	3. All This Time Is Passing By

**A/N:**I know that the overall meaning of the song 'Come Back Down by Lifehouse' doesn't fit with this chapter, but I was struggling to find something that fit with what I wanted this chapter to be. And this particular excerpt fits just fine, so I'm using it.

_Staring right back in the face  
A memory can't be erased  
I know, because I tried  
Start to feel the emptiness  
And everything I'm gonna miss  
I know, that I can't hide_

She slips into the lab unnoticed, her hair ruffled and sticking out in all directions, her collar askew, courtesy of her jacket that she hastily takes off, draping it on the sofa situated in her office, gently rubbing her eyes. She hadn't got much sleep the night before.

It had been about 3 o'clock when Booth had left, and although she had gone with less sleep before, a part of her assumed that this was emotional exhaustion. The part, of course, that had started to believe that psychology wasn't a soft science; still a very small part, and it always would be.

She didn't know what had gone wrong; the sex was incredible, it made her feel safe, comforted, everything that she'd always been lacking. When she'd woken up, she was fine. Her urges had been satisfied, and all that remained was a little nagging in the brain, that Booth would be uncomfortable with this.

He had always seemed... somehow, impartial each time they had discussed sexual intercourse, and she had assumed that this would apply to this situation. He would want their relationship to stay the same, to be the partners and friends they had for the last two years, and she would allow that.

But he had not seemed so thrilled with her compliance to the rules she supposed he had.

Now, she feels.. empty. Hollow, like only half of her is sitting in that office, contemplating what to do. It is irrational, and it illogical, and extremely unlike her. But sleeping with her partner was unlike her, also.

It was also unlike her to be so hurt by Booth's angry departure. Hurt wasn't the right word. She didn't know what was. She just wants to forget this, and go on with her everyday routine. Wake up, come to the lab, solve cases, go home, go to sleep.

But Booth was a big part of this day, and she didn't want to face him. She just wants... to forget. She assumes that Angela is either sleeping in, or on her honeymoon, because she would have already pounced on her drab appearance.

She is glad for this, because somehow, she would dig the truth out of her. But also, she wanted Angela there. To talk, because this was uncharted territory for her. Her feelings did not make any sense to her at all. She felt like a mess, and she had been a mess before, there was no doubt of that.

But not quite like this.

She knows it is illogical to be reminded of her night by inanimate objects, but the bed reminds her of their escapade, the coffee mugs their heated argument, and her door the slamming noise it had made when he left.

She winces when she remembers these. She winces at the fact she is wincing; what has happened to her? Why does this matter so much?

"Sorry if I'm... interrupting anything, Dr. Brennan, but why are you here on a Sunday?" Cam pops her head around the door, looking slightly comical in her confusion. She's wearing those plastic glasses, and one hand wears a green latex scrub.

Brennan rubs her head in confusion, massaging her temples and almost begging everything to go away and leave her to recollect her thoughts in peace. "I uh... thought it was Monday."

"Oh, okay then. Did you get home from the reception alright?" This annoys Brennan; her and Cam are not friends, merely co-workers. She has no right to be poking into if she got home from the reception alright, as it is her private business.

"Why?" Brennan accuses, then eyeing Cam's scrub, as if to ask why _she_ was here on a Sunday.

"I work overtime occasionally, and today was one of these days. A teenaged boy just was murdered in an alleyway last night. And... you just... don't look the best." Cam scratches her head with the gloved hand. This is thin ice for her; the two are on good terms, but you never know with Temperance Brennan. "I'm assuming Booth dropped you home?" She casually asks, perhaps too casually. Not that Brennan would have picked up on the reason for asking.

"That's none of your business, Dr. Saroyan." The walls go up, curt reply spat out like a copy machine that's been set on automatic. Automatically sensing that something is _up_, and that the _something_ might be in relation to Booth, Cam retreats in silence.

"Wait, Dr. Saroyan. You're in charge of who we get hired out to, right? I know it used to be Dr. Goodman but since you've come I haven't been sure..." She says loudly, so Cam can hear it, on the way back to her autopsy room.

"Yes..." Cam trails off, as if expecting an explanation for the odd question. She doesn't get one.

"Could I... request that I'm no longer on loan to the FBI?"

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

He sees the Post-It Note on his desk the next day. A sickly pink, it says "Relations with Jeffersonian Institute cut." _Fuck this. Fuck her. Fuck her for not wanting more._ _Fuck him for expecting she would._

He feels like a fool. A messed up, fucked up FBI agent who got too involved. Way, way too involved. It seems like he's aged twenty years in the past twenty four hours, gaining speckles of gray hair and numerous lines across his face in the short time they've been... estranged.

It's obvious she wants him out of her life. They've crossed the line, and she can't justify that night being anything more than a sexual urge, but he can. This scares her, and she wants out. The only way she knows how. Severing all ties.

Mentally exhausted, he walks right back out the door to his office, closing it behind him, and going straight back home.


End file.
